Our recent article on school district salaries in Skagit County has highlighted some particularly alarming findings related to school district employee earnings.[1] We noted that 83% ($274.9m) of school district budgets countywide are spent on salaries and benefits.[2] In this article, we break down the expenditures on administrative base salaries to show an astonishingly overpaid workforce that has shown us year after year that student success doesn’t matter. For any private enterprise, failing results mean layoffs, reduced pay, sometimes even businesses closing. But in our public school districts, students failing to meet basic standards means, fat paychecks, raises, new admin positions, and more business as usual. Paychecks just keep going up, the admin overhead balloons, and student comprehension dwindles. There is no accountability and no internal recognition that anything is wrong. Read on to find out some of what’s going on behind the curtains of the school districts that are desperate for taxpayer levy funds to “support the kids.”
Total administrative base salaries are at a median of $65k, which isn’t all that unreasonable in itself. However, the range of admin salaries extends all the way to $250k yearly and admin salaries in total are responsible for $80m a year across the county.[3] Sedro-Woolley School District’s entire budget was $76.4m in 2020-2021,[4] meaning admin salaries alone could pay for an entire school district with more than 4400 students to function!
In superintendent offices across the county, over $2.7m is spent yearly on administrative salaries just for the staff in their offices. Superintendents themselves earn up to $250k, plus the Assistant Superintendents earn up to $203k yearly (Fig 1). This is some serious taxpayer cash flow. Then there are the “Executive Assistants,” which is a fancy title for secretaries. According to WA Employment Security Department, the median wage for Executive Secretaries or Executive Assistants in the Mount Vernon – Anacortes area is just over $60k.[5] At the school district, these same positions are earning over $90-100k a year![6] Taxpayers are responsible for an extra $30-40k a year for these positions beyond a reasonable wage in the county. What an abuse of taxpayer funds.
Principals’ and Vice Principals’ base salaries account for $5.2m per year with 34 Principals (Median base salary $157k) and 23 Vice Principals (Median base salary $149k) across the county (Fig 2). Similar private sector wages in the Mount Vernon-Anacortes area include Architectural and Engineering Managers ($143k), Computer and Information Systems Managers ($152k), Marketing Managers ($155k), and Pharmacists ($140k).[8] Any private-sector employee is responsible for delivering results and their income arises from business-generated revenue. School district admin salaries are off the charts for earnings AND the number of positions. Moreover, funds come from the local taxpayers who make $33k per capita income.[9]
Besides the outrageous admin school district salaries already highlighted above, there are 47 admin positions across the county categorized as, “other district admin/support personnel,” that tout particularly cushy base salaries. These roles earn a median salary of $132k and include a variety of directors, coordinators, deans, specialist roles, and a well-paid Librarian ($99k).[11]
On the flip side of the overpaid administrative roles, there are 739 employees (26%) earning less than the county’s median per capita income ($33k) (Fig 3). We suspect these positions are part-time.
School administrative base salaries are unreasonable across the board (see appendices for school district-specific administration base salary data). Taxpayers are being taken advantage of, especially considering public school boards are completely ignoring the voice of their constituents on a number of issues,[13] [14] not to mention the fact that school districts are failing outright to educate students in basic standards.[15] Our students deserve better and our community deserves better as well.[16]
